Thoughts on Business, and how Agile, Lean, Scrum, XP, and Agile Project Management can help businesses run better

Monday, May 7, 2012

A list summarizing Scrum

Revised May 6, 2012.

***
The list below is not self-explanatory, but it covers the key ideas one has to know and execute on to do Scrum professionally. Of course, becoming proficient at doing them at the highest level (at the rugby World Cup level) is a lifetime's work. Rugby is a simple game with simple rules, but to reach the highest level of play is very difficult.

This list could be used as a starting point for defining 'agile' or 'scrum' in your firm. I am suggesting such a definition could drive useful conversations. And it fits on one page (a key criterion).

Key Ideas:
Scrum is a process framework
Deliver business value faster
The Product Owner is maximizing the value delivered by the Team
Inspect & Adapt
Transparency
Self-organizing
7 plus/minus 2
Build iteratively and incrementally
Working product at the end of each Sprint
Potentially shippable product increment
Need for feedback
Always learning
Always adapting to good and bad change
Usefulness of high quality
Scrum hates technical debt
Knowing work remaining in a Sprint (daily)
Knowing work remaining in a Release (every Sprint)
Protecting the implementers from disruptions
Protecting the implementers from the Death March
The ScrumMaster drives the removal of impediments
Must add other practices (e.g., engineering practices) to Scrum to do work
Scrum does not include agile release planning (but you probably need it)
Scrum is consistent with the Agile Manifesto and Agile Principles
The Team should be having more fun (and be more creative)
Sprint Planning Meeting, parts 1 & 2.
The Product Owner orders the work in the PB; the implementers decide how much they can do in a Sprint.
Sprint Goal
Sprint "commitment"
The 3 Daily Scrum questions
Purpose of Daily Scrum: self-management
Demo working product & get feedback
Servant leadership
Chickens can help
Just-enough, just-in-time, documentation